Monday, May 7, 2012

A-Z Reflections #AtoZChallenge

 

First off, I would like to thank our fabulous A-Z hosts for all their hard work.

Arlee Bird at Tossing it Out, Alex J. Cavanaugh, Stephen Tremp at Breakthrough Blogs, Jenny Pearson at Pearson Report, Matthew McNish at The QQQE, Tina Downey at Life is Good, Jeremy Hawkins at Retro-Zombie, DL Hammons at Cruising Altitude, Shannon Lawrence at The Warrior Muse, Elizabeth Mueller, Damyanti Biswas at Amlokiblogs, Karen Gowen at Coming Down the Mountain, Konstanz Silverbow at No Thought 2 Small. 

None of this would be possible without them.

The end of April is always bittersweet. Although it's nice to return to a normal blogging schedule, it's fun to see people's A-Z posts as well as their themes. I noticed a lot more themes this year, and I had my own theme to write flash fiction within my fantasy world of Foxwick.

 

So the A-Z Challenge helped me create a flash fiction collection.

I tried to write all my flash fiction pieces before April 1st. Let's just say I was scrambling to finish them during that first week of April. Then, I edited them for the blog and proofread them for publication. I created new names because of the more difficult letters, such as Javen, Orin, and Quaylin. Through all that, I was working on my novelette Fighting Gravity, which officially was released May 1st.

Let's just say next year I won't try to release two books practically the same month as the A-Z Challenge.

I completely failed getting to a lot of blogs, but I'm so glad I got to the ones I did. If for some reason I'm not following you back, please let me know in the comments. I like to follow back, but sometimes I miss people.

There were a few blogs I read all their 26 posts.
Alex J. Cavanaugh - He featured bloggers and more!
Christine Rains - She had an awesome paranormal romance story. I couldn't wait to see what would happen next to Abby, Demetrius, and Tawa.
Fairview - She also was writing a paranormal story, featuring time travel.
Clarissa Draper - While she was gearing up for the release of her mystery novel, The Sholes Key, she gave us a real-life mystery every day.
Rachel Morgan - Rachel's Creepy Hollow series is fantastic, and she wrote flash fiction involving the creatures of Creepy Hollow.

Many more I dropped in when I could.

I also participated in the challenge with my book reviews blog, Surrounded by Books Reviews. My main reflection is there, but I featured authors every day, and it was a lot of fun learning about them.

I really did enjoy writing to a theme. I think next year I might write a YA Fantasy continuing story about Eirwyn. Her character fascinates me, and I enjoyed learning more about her through writing the flash fiction. I would also like to write the posts sooner, i.e. having everything written by early March instead of early April.

I want to plan less for April, so I can visit more blogs next time.

I'm not sure how the hosts could do better than they did for the challenge. Maybe if there were categories instead of a massive list, it might be easier to find bloggers with similar interests. At the same time, I do like the randomness of the massive list.

I can't wait for April next year!

16 comments:

Unknown said...

Yes, I think the similar interest aspect you have mentioned would possibly be one for the hosts to investigate!

mooderino said...

Well done on completing the challenge. I've been seeing a lot of reflection posts suggesting the categories idea, I hope they consider it. Would make things a lot easier.

mood
Moody Writing
@mooderino
The Funnily Enough

Unknown said...

I with you, I want to plan less for next April too so I can enjoy the month. Thanks for mentioning my blog. It's funny because I mentioned your blog too. By the way, I'll be finishing both of your gravity books today, I've already read one. I love the characters. I wish I could find out what happened to them.

Tara Tyler said...

you did an awesome job!

i read christine's story too!

another great a to z =)

Samantha May said...

I loved your A-Z theme! I think categories would be extremely useful, but that's just me :D

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

You had a great theme! So did several of the others you mentioned - I enjoyed reading the stories.
And thanks so much for visiting me every single time. You rock!

Christina M. McKnight said...

You are a dedicated blog reader! Great job with completing the A-Z Challenge. I look forward to participating next year.

Christine Rains said...

Your flash fiction posts were awesome! Lots of fun. I didn't get to visit all the blogs either, and in my Reflections post on Wednesday, I suggest the same thing about categories/groups.

Patricia JL said...

I didn't get to read all your posts for the challenge, but I did enjoy the ones I did read.

Nancy Thompson said...

Wow, talk about a lot of work! I can't believe you attempted all that at once! I certainly could never manage it. I barely survived the A to Z alone. Way to go!!

Theresa Milstein said...

How nice you read all 26 posts on all those blogs. It was quite a month!

Donna B. McNicol said...

Like you, I commented on categories and I've seen several others agree.

I loved your theme and look forward to seeing your future blogs. So glad I found you on A-Z.

Here's to next year!

J.C. Martin said...

Congratulations on your book release! How wonderful that a blog challenge could result in a completed book! I enjoyed your Flashes of Foxwick. And thanks for those blog suggestions. I followed Clarissa, Alex and Rachel, but will not check the others out.

Tyrean Martinson said...

Great reflections post! I love the randomness of the big list, but I think it might be cool to have a little note by each blog for genre of blog posts - like - writing, creativity, photography, etc.

EvalinaMaria said...

Double congratulations!

Evalina, This and that...

tmycann said...

Nice reflections post. I can't imagine doing more than one blog for the A-Z challenge. Kudos to you for managing it! Mine was focused on building interest in the book I released in late April.